Phytoplankton Discoveries

The word "plankton" comes from the Greek word Planktos, whish means wanderer, or basically anything that can't move against a current. Plankton is at the bottom of the food chain and many believe it just referrs to a whale's tasty snack; krill. This, however, is not true. Plankton can be anything from algae to jellyfish. There are four different ways to clasify plankton: food (animal or plant), color (red, brown, gold, green/blue), lifestyle (whether or not they are able to grow out of being plankton into something that can swim against current), and size (varying from ultra plankton which is less than .005 mm. up to mega plankton which is greater than 2 mm.).

Question: How diverse are the plankton species on south Maui?

Hypothesis: I think that we will find 4 types of phytoplankton and 10 types of zooplankton. If this is correct, the plankton on south maui will be somewhat diverse.

Materials: Plankton net, ID books, microscopes, slides, coverslips, pipette, pen/pencil

Procedure:
1. Gather necessary materials
2. Go to the beach
3. Use the plankton net: drag through water for 3 minutes
4. Come back to class and remove the jar from the net
5. Use a pipette to remove the plankton from the jar
6. Put the sample on a slide or petri dish depending on method used
7. Use the microscope to look at the plankton
8. Use the ID books to differenciate and clasify the plankton
9. Record your data

Data From Kihei Boat Ramp:

Temperature: 20.4°C

Wind: None-slight

Dissolved Oxygen: 0

Phosphates: 3

Nitrates: 3

Tide: Low

Turbinity: 0

Our mission was to determine the diversity among plankton in South Maui. I hypothesized that there would be about twice as much zooplankton as there was phytoplankton. While I don't remember the exact difference, the amount of phytoplankton identified seemed to be about the same as the zooplankton we identified.

Beach Profiling

Our class has been Profiling Kalepolepo beh, which has lived up to it's dirty, dirty name. On our site, there's a pond, which effects the distribution of sand, dun  restoration, which reshapes the beach, and many other man made factors that effect this area.

(Allie and Lucas measuring carefully with the Rise/Run tools

as we follow the transect over the hill)

(Holly and Lucas getting help from Ms. S at the beginning of our transect)

Procedure:

1)   Gather your materials: Transect tape, GPS, compass, Rise and Run tool, data sheet, and pencil or pen. 2)  Head out to the beach!

3)  Once you find a good dune er’ two, pick one and find the latitude and longitude coordinates of that dune using your remarkable GPS tool. Record these on your data sheet as “Point A”
4)  Now lay your transect tape out stretching from Point A to the shoreline, making sure it is perpendicular to the waterline
5)  Then hold the compass at Point A to find out the degree/direction of the transect line laid out. Record this reading!
6)  Place the Run tool on the ground and Point A aligning with the transect tape (pointing downwards) and use the level to make it level (Ha!)
7)   Now place the Rise tool at the end of the Run tool and use the level to make sure it’s even. This is Point B
8)  Look to see where the Run tool intersects with the Rise tool and record is at the Rise between points A and B. This number (if the dune tilts up) should be a negative number.
9)  Note any distinctive features that stick out between the two points and on the dune
10) Now move the foot of the Run tool to the foot of the Rise tool (making sure it’s at the same point) and remove the Rise tool from that spot. Make sure the Run tool remains level and perpendicular to the water line
11) Then take the Rise tool and place it so it’s touching the end of the Run tool, like #7, and make it level again
12) Repeat steps 10 and 11 until you get to the “foot of the beach” in the water, past the shoreline. 

Where is the Sand From?

Sandy beaches are everyone's favorite. Where does the sand come from? There are two types. Biogenic sand comes from something once living (shells, exoskeletons, coral). Detrital sand comes from rock that's eroded To assess our data from given beaches, we will test our sand using vinegar to find out if it contains calcium carbonate (which will create a bubbling reaction if it's biogenic).

vinegar  + calcium carbonate = calcium acetate + water + carbon dioxide (the bubble effect)

Less popularly known as: 2CH3COOH + CaCO3 = Ca(CH3COO)2 + H2O + CO2

Question: Which beaches on south Maui (Kihei area) will turn out to be biogenic, and which will be detrital?


Hypothesis: I predict that Big beach will be a biogenic beach, and black sand beach will be primarily detrital.
If the sand reacts to the vinegar, it will be biogenic, and otherwise detrital.


Materials: Journal, pen, cup (for sand), vinegar, pipette, map, and sand.

Procedure:
1. Gather materials
2. Make observations of chosen beaches
3. Collect sand from chosen beaches
4. Test the sand with vinegar using 20 drops from the pipette
5. Record your data after determining it's origin

    Makena Beach (Onelua)

   

    Black Sand Beach

Makena Beach: This beach is long, and white, with fine sand and Keawe shade. There is a dead reef offshore, which produces sand, and harbors the coast from much erosion.

Black Sand Beach: This beach is hidden, and often shaded by trees and high rock that surrounds it. It has grainy salt and pepper sand. The surrounding rock seems like it has eroded a lot, producing sand for this beach.

Data: Big beach's sample bubbled the most of any sample we tested, with lots of popping, which means it's a biogenic beach. Black Sand beach made no bubbling, with slight popping, and it's results suggested it was detrital.

Conclusion: The purpose of this lab was to find whether certain beaches on south Maui were biogenic or detrital. After testing our samples, we found that Black Sand beach was primarily detrital, and Big beach was biogenic. The results from our sampling matched my hypothesis almost exactly.

Possible Sources of Error:

•  failed to observe certain reefs, cliffs, or other factors
• added the wrong amount of vinegar to our samples
• mislabeled our sand samples
• recorded our data incorrectly

Whale Observation 1

Hawaiian Humpback whales are an endangered species our class has been learning about. Other than collecting research on the whaling, laws about whales, and the animals themselves, we have also included an observation from McGregor's point. The purpose of our lab is to observe and better understand Hawaiian Humpback whales.

Question: Are there more Humpback Whales in Maui during the beginning of the season or towards the end?

Hypothesis: I predict there to be more humpback whales present towards the end of the season compared to the beginning. If so, we will observe more whales during later observations.

Procedure:

1. Find a partner
2. Collect materials

3. Record number of whales observed

4. Record pod type

5. Record behaviors observed

6. Find direction of travel using compass
7. Record est. distance using clinometer.

During our observation at McGregor's, my group and I saw about 7 different whales. There was a competition pod, a few mothers and calves, and of course...those flyin' solo. I didn't think I'd really see any; I hadn't realized that if you sit and watch for a while you'll see a lot more than expected. The biggest challenge was getting an accurate read on our clinometer due to the really windy spot. Otherwise, I think we worked well as a group of three. I found it to be overall exciting.

To find the Estimated distance from shore, we used clinometer's we used in class.

The formula we used is Distance= Elevation of Observation x (Tan) Angle of Inclination

Above: A graph created to differentiate the average whale observations from each date.

The purpose of this lab was to find whether more whales can be observed at the beginning of their season or the end on Maui. My hypothesis was that there will be more whales now (towards the end of the season), than earlier this year. My prediction was right; we observed many more whales last time than during our initial observation.

On the whale watch, our class observed many whales during our window of opportunity to record. If you don't mind sun, water, or boats, it couldn't be that horrible. I enjoyed having more than an hour to get to know my classmates, and I think it always helps when working together in the future. Overall, I think the whale watch trip was a success.

Marine Phyla Lab

There are nine types of marine Phyla. These are Porifera, Cnidaria, Platyhelminthes, Annelida, Mollusca, Nematoda, Arthapoda, Echinodermata, and Chordata. Our class went to the Waipulani Tide Pools in South Maui to collect data. Our objective was to find the phyla that there was most of, and also which ones were most diverse. After splitting into groups, we spread out accross the tide pools to conduct our research.

Which marine phyla are present at the tide pools of south Maui, and which phyla are most represented in diversity and quantity? I think that there will be Arthropoda, Echinodermata, Chorodata, Mollusca, and Porifera present at the South Maui tide pools. I think there will be more Chorodata and Echinodermata (quantity wise), and that the Arthropoda will be the most diverse. Our group’s data found mostly Mollusca, and a little Arthropoda. The overall class data shows that Mollusca is still the most abundant, with Arthropoda, Porifera, and Echinodermata following. There isn’t much diversity in our data, but according to our data sheet, Arthropoda was most diverse (which I hypothesized.)



I thought this was a fairly fun lab to do. I think our team would have been more effective if we had worked more as a team of five rather than the three that collected the research that was actually within limits of our area. With the research we did find, I think we did well putting it together. I thought it was interesting how little diversity there was in the species we were finding, but overall as a class we found four different marine phyla.

Group Data:
Mollusca: 97%
Arthropoda: 3%

Class Data:
Mollusca: 94%
Arthropoda: 5%
Porifera: 1%
Echinodermata: 0%

The Geocaching Experience

Geocaching is a treasure hunting game that involves a lot of today's technology. The idea is to find hidden containers using GPS devices in places near you. When you locate a cache, you sign the log book, and can take an item from the cache if you replace it with something of equal or greater value. There are many sizes of caches, so follow the hints carefully.

The beauty of this game is that there are more than a million geocaches hidden worldwide, so you can have fun finding them on your vacations as well! To get the coordinates, go to http://www.geocaching.com and sign up for a free account.

I think that what I summarized above kind of epitomizes my understanding of geocaching. I had seen it before in a movie, but I didn't know what it was exactly until we did this unit. I learned some about how to use a GPS as well, but I have a feeling I won't really retain that information. I figure the only GPS I'll be needing is the one in my phone.

I was on team 2 from Period 4, and we tied with team 1. Both team foud 3 caches each. I'm very proud of us all for winning the competition as a class rather than a team. The first time we went out looking for geocaches,  our class didn't find any. That was kind of discouraging. Knowing that all of the classes before us had at least found one motivated me to find more! I even ended up almost having fun on our last outing.

Geocache 1:

Geocache 2:

Geocache 3:

Termite Colony Observations!

During our unit of studying termites and how they live and function, we watched some of our own termites build a colony as we observed them week to week.

In our jar, we kept:
120 grams of silica sand
18 ml of water
1 small piece of Douglas Fir

8/18/10 Initial observation: They all look similar in size, my estimation of the population would be 45 termites; the majority of them seem to be eating.

8/23/10 Second observation: They haven't eaten much wood, but they have created homes and trails/routine walkways.

8/30/10 Third Observation: They have eaten through the knot in the wood chip, and have continued to make their trails-few have died.

The termites reacted rather well after their homes were upturned by human interaction. They kept working hard to use make trails.
I thought this unit was prettty cool; some of it was gross, but it was all very informing and useful to our everyday lives. My least favorite part was killing the little termite. My favorite part was making the big glittery poster full of termite facts.